20 points for talking about how great your theory is, without fully explaining it.

20 points for each use of the phrase "hidebound reactionary".

20 points for each suggestion that Venus & Adonis and Lucrece are dangerously satirical.

30 points for each use of the phrase "self-appointed defender of the orthodoxy".

30 points for suggesting that a famous figure secretly disbelieved in a theory which he or she publicly supported.

30 points for every time you mention how many Amazon review stars your book got.

30 points for attributing works of genius to infant prodigies.

30 points for suggesting that previous orthodox scholars were groping their way towards the ideas you now advocate.

30 points for claiming that your theories were developed by an extraterrestrial civilization.

30 points for allusions or references to the psychiatrist who tried to talk you out of your theory.

40 points for comparing those who argue against your ideas to Nazis, stormtroopers, or brownshirts.

40 points for claiming that the "academic establishment" is engaged in a "conspiracy" to prevent your work from gaining its well-deserved fame, or suchlike.

50 points for comparing yourself to Galileo, suggesting that a modern-day Inquisition is hard at work on your case, and so on.

50 points for each claim based on a Sonnet of which you have only read two lines.

50 points for claiming that when your theory is finally appreciated, present-day scholarship will be seen for the sham it truly is.

50 points for claiming you have a revolutionary theory but giving no concrete testable predictions.

75 points for each fictional character, play-broker or new poet you are required to invent.

75 points for mentioning any offspring of a European monarch unknown to history and relating it to your authorship candidate

75 points for claiming that your work is on the cutting edge of a "paradigm shift".

75 points for claiming that other academics agree with you unconsciously.

1. With the humblest apologies to John Baez, who wrote the original and applied it to physics. The fact that half of the ratings points are almost unchanged does, however, rather highlight the way that different academic fields are plagued by the same kind of unscholarly, half-assed heresy.

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There are no simple methods for rating potentially revolutionary contributions to the Study of Shakespeare's Authorship:

Keeping in mind that for hundreds of years, there is a unique Shakespeare authorship problem, this inevitably leads to the question of how such a unique situation could arise and why it could not be solved until today. One can postulate with considerable plausibility, that there has to be a unique difficulty which prevented "400 years of collective intelligence" to unravel the mystery.

The unusual problem is reminiscent of the hundreds of years of attempts to prove Fermat's conjecture (the french Mathematician Pierre de Fermat). During the centuries the world was convinced that there must be a solution! The solution was finally found in 1994 and it required about 100 pages.

It tells us that some assumptions can not be proven more simple. You may transfer this analogy to the solution of the conjecture of the equation

Fermat's Last theorem was only known through its conclusion and massive changes and improvements to mathematical technqiue were required to prove what Fermat had notionally concluded. Riemann's Hypothesis is used in everday mathematical practice yet still lacks a proof because of the extreme complexity that lies within it. These are both examples of problems which have exercised the whole of the mathematical Academy for many years.

Mathematical proofs are problems which baffle everyone until they are solved and bear no relation to so-called authorship problems which are built out of speculation and ignorance. The only mystery in the Authorship Question is why so many seemingly intelligent people have spent so much time creating a problem where none exists.